


one less set of footsteps

by ang3lba3



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Established Relationship, Foot Fetish, Foot Jobs, Idiots in Love, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Porn with Feelings, blink and you miss it past royai, overwrought as hell for what it is, vague setting but its post canon by a lot of years, which canon? idfk man this is a PRANK
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:13:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23859628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ang3lba3/pseuds/ang3lba3
Summary: Ed proposes. It goes horribly, and thenverywell.***Being alive feels like beating his hands against soft, rotting fruit. He can scream all he wants, demand answers, demandwhy are you doing this to me,but the truth always is - he is doing it to himself. The rotten fruit is a casualty in his own self sabotage, a victim that he blames for his own violence. And if he nicks his knuckles on a peach pit, if he grows ill from the scent of putrid fleshy things-- that is his own fault too.
Relationships: Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Comments: 24
Kudos: 119





	one less set of footsteps

**Author's Note:**

> Jinx, i genuinely worked hard on this and i genuinely hope you like it even tho its a joke
> 
> thank you mello, for requesting this Very Nicely.
> 
> the title comes from the song 'one less set of footsteps' by jim croche, and he doesn't deserve to be memorialized like this, but i didn't deserve to open a notification reading smth like FOOT PORN, DEDICATE IT TO JIN.

“Fuck off,” Roy says, thoughtlessly, loudly, purely reactive. 

Ed’s face does something-- awful. 

As well it should, really. He’s down on one knee in front of Roy, and they’re in the private booth of their favorite restaurant, and his hair is pinned up with pearls that only serve to highlight the sharp line of his jaw, and he’s wearing the cologne that he hates but that Roy bought him for their first anniversary, and in his hand in a box is a ring, and Roy just told him to _fuck off._

“I meant,” Roy says, drowning, fingers twitching convulsively. Ed’s fingers don’t twitch at all. They are steady and sure as they close the box, close the ring away. “No--”

“Yeah, I fucking got that you meant no, Roy,” Ed says, and he’s jolting to his feet. His face is blank now, shoulders tight, and Roy half expects him to run out of the restaurant, or throw something. Instead, he sits back down in his chair, scoots it up to the table, and continues his meal. Chewing mechanically, knuckles white around the fork. 

“I didn’t mean _no,”_ says Roy, who had meant no, and also hadn’t meant to ever be put in a position to say it. 

“It’s fine,” Ed says. 

Roy is absolutely certain it is not fine, which was why he had been so careful to make sure Ed would never want to _ask._

“I just,” Roy starts.

“Supper’s gettin’ cold,” Ed says. 

Roy had ordered a salad. It, unlike everything else about this night, actually _is_ fine. 

“There’s something you don’t know,” Roy attempts.

“Dunno a lotta things, ‘pparently,” Ed says, stone faced as he eats his potatoes.

“It’s an _important_ something,” Roy tries. 

“Drop it, Roy,” Ed says, and a fork tine catches his mouth as he raises it jerkily, makes a small cut. Ed ignores it, and Roy watches him eat bloody potatoes, and feels.

Helpless.

***

Maybe he should have seen it coming, is the thing, but he’s been singularly unromantic with Ed. Because to be romantic would be to reveal enough of himself that Ed would not wish their relationship to continue. Ed not wishing their relationship to continue is the worst thing that he can possibly imagine, and so he settles for scraps. He says _I love you_ only when he’s in danger of choking on the words, he only buys gifts for major holidays, and whenever Ed’s looking a bit too cozy in his life he’ll pick a fight over something stupid.

And it was supposed to have _worked_. He’d been making it work for _five years._ This was supposed to have worked until Ed met someone better (easy, he meets people better than Roy all the time, he just hasn’t realized yet), or until Ed found an opportunity for a life more fulfilling than the one Roy would allow them (effortless, Ed is bored to tears half the time and the other half he’s infuriated). 

But it _didn’t work,_ and Roy told Ed to _fuck off,_ and he can’t even explain why except for how he _has to explain why._

***

Roy does not explain why. They finish the dinner, and they go home, and Ed takes an extra long shower, and Roy lays down in bed with his heart thrumming in his chest like a piano string about to break, and Ed comes to bed. 

Clicks off the light.

Snugs his back against Roy’s side.

And pretends to go to sleep. 

That’s when Roy realizes that they’re not going to talk about this.

It should be a relief.

It really, really should.

***

The silence is oppressive, all the more so for how it isn’t actually silence. Ed says all the things that he normally does in the morning and the early afternoon, even if he does it in a careful sort of tone. And Roy, half a beat too late, says the normal things back, and the house transforms into a suffocating _tomb_ as the elephant in the room grows so large it blocks the windows.

Ed is laying on the couch, seeming largely himself as he flips through an alchemical periodical. His knees are up, one leg balanced on top of the other, tapping in the open air. Outside, the neighbor’s children are screaming. Ed licks his thumb, and turns a page. Hums thoughtfully at whatever he reads there.

Roy has been trying to read the same sentence for half an hour, and has made no progress. Roy has been trying to think of a way to return things to normal without honesty since he said _fuck off,_ and has made no progress. Roy is, to his own genuine horror, opening his mouth. 

“Did-I-ever-tell-you-why-my-first-girlfriend-broke-up-with-me?”

Ed flips to the next page. “Shouldn’t you be in charge of remembering that?”

“She broke up with me,” Roy says, and takes a fortifying breath. Ed is barely paying attention to him, which somehow makes this both easier and harder. “Because I.”

And then it becomes neither, because he cannot get the words out. They build on the back of his tongue, the front of his throat, pressing at his teeth and his lips, the shape of them there but _trapped trapped trapped._

Ed closes the periodical, and slaps it on the floor. “What was so important about your _first girlfriend_ that you had to interrupt me, Roy?”

“I HAVE A FOOT FETISH,” Roy yells. 

The distant screaming of children stops. Roy’s heart stops. Ed’s laying on the couch stops. 

“Are you telling me,” Ed hisses, rolling to his ( _lovely, beautiful)_ feet and stalking towards Roy, fists clenched. “That you said no to my proposal. Because of some _teenage trauma._ Over a _fetish?”_

Roy’s face scrunches up in agony, and also because some sweat had dripped in his eyes and it was stinging. “Yes.”

“I’m going to kick you to death,” Ed says, and Roy says in an entirely different tone _yes,_ and Ed raises an eyebrow and says, “Oh. Huh. I can work with that.”

“I’m a great coworker,” Roy says.

Ed makes a different face then, one of dawning horror, triggered by the word _coworker,_ and Roy hates where this is going. “Was your-- your first girlfriend, was she--”

“No!” Roy says loudly. “Let’s have sex!”

“I dunno,” Ed says, and now he’s laughing, so Roy really doesn’t have any choice but to tackle him to the floor. 

It’s a flurry of clothes, of hands and skin and -- and _feet,_ and he can think about them now, about the delicate arch in the steel and the delicate arch in the flesh, about the gold and silver and the strength in both of them. About the moving wire and nerves and blood and the heat-cold of them. About the suggestion of toenails etched into Ed’s automail foot. 

Being alive feels like beating his hands against soft, rotting fruit. He can scream all he wants, demand answers, demand _why are you doing this to me,_ but the truth always is - he is doing it to himself. The rotten fruit is a casualty in his own self sabotage, a victim that he blames for his own violence. And if he nicks his knuckles on a peach pit, if he grows ill from the scent of putrid fleshy things-- that is his own fault too. 

Being with Ed does not feel like being alive. It never has. It has felt fragile at times, but never the fragility of a man throwing a tantrum. It feels fragile like a delicately crafted confection, a tower of spun sugar filled with marzipan tenants, a garden of cotton candy flowers beneath. It has felt unbelievable at times, but not the cold shock of disbelief at his own behavior - instead, the soft and insistent whisper of something you haven’t earned, of a lucky turn. 

Being with Ed has felt so alien to what Roy understood as life, of course he was always waiting to fuck it up. To, as it were, put his foot in his mouth. 

“You just thought of a pun,” Ed accuses, propped up on his elbows, shirt unbuttoned and pressed close.

“No,” Roy says, as straight faced as he can. The effect is ruined by how he keeps flicking his head to keep his hair out of his eyes. He hadn’t gelled it into place this morning, and it’s about time for a cut.

“Share it with me or I’ll,” Ed pauses. Squints in thought. “Or I won’t let you put my foot in your mouth.”

Roy snorts, sharp and shocked even as heat lances through him. Ed flops dramatically further into the carpet, covering his face with his hands and groaning.

“Oh my God. That was it, wasn’t it. That was the pun. You _fucker.”_

“I do seem to have a talent for,” and Roy pauses, until Ed moves his hands, peeks at him with golden eyes. “Getting off on the wrong foot.” 

“Nooo,” Ed groans, and reaches a leg up to push ineffectually at Roy’s collarbone. “Leave here immediately.” 

“Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet,” Roy snickers, and grasps Ed’s ankle with one hand, presses a swift kiss to the jut of bone there. 

“I don’t think I’m gonna be as into this as you,” Ed warns, probably because Roy’s face is transparent, his desire is so _obvious,_ not even taking into account...other parts of his body.

“That’s-- that’s acceptable,” Roy says. It is. He doesn’t care if Ed’s as into this as him. He mostly cares that Ed isn’t _repulsed._

“I,” Ed shrugs, “Well? Go for it, then.”

Roy’s brain hits max capacity in half a second, and he has to squeeze his eyes shut, breathe deep and even through his nose. Fantasy after fantasy crashing behind his eyelids, and there’s that thread of shame and disgust-- he’s not sure there ever _won’t_ be-- but now that he’s had permission to start he doesn’t know how to stop. He’s been broken open, and one brush would be enough to send him over the edge.

“Ha,” Ed laughs, and wiggles his foot in Roy’s hand, brushes his toes against his cheek. Roy can feel the bones move, the tendons strain at the awkward angle. “God. You’re so fucked up over this.” 

Roy’s eyes pop open, a retort already on his tongue, but Ed looks-- his eyes are soft, the gold darkening. The sting fades as fast as it had lashed through him. 

“I mean,” and Ed swallows, convulsively. “I just mean... you don’t... you’re not usually like this.”

“Awkward?”

“Oh, no, you’re plenty awkward,” Ed grins. He arches his back a little, testing the hold Roy has on his foot. He laughs at the face Roy makes, at the way his fingers convulse. “Desperate for me.”

“I--” and Roy can’t deny it, he really can’t, so it’s best to avoid it. “I’ll get you off first.”

“Mmm,” Ed hums, and presses his heel into the slot of Roy’s shoulder, shoves until Roy falls from his knees to his ass. “Lemme know if I’m fucking this up.”

***

Ed props himself up further so that he can get a better look at what he’s doing. It’s not like he hasn’t ever been flopped on one end of the couch with Roy’s feet on his lap and brushed suggestively against him. He hadn’t thought of it as anything special, just... easier than sitting up. Roy always took the hint quickly, and climbed up where Ed’s hands could get at him. 

This is just going to be like that, but more involved. Feet aren’t-- well they’re... just _feet._ Aren’t they? But Roy is staring down at Ed’s foot, breathing so fast he’s making an awful little whistle on every other exhale, and there’s nothing _just_ about it. He’s tented up in his pants, and Ed can actually fucking-- he can feel the wet spot. 

It sends a shiver down his spine. 

“Through the pants, or...” Ed asks, gently massaging with his toes. He’s getting hard in his own pants, the heat of Roy’s erection and the twitches underneath him. “I’ve never thought about how to do this.”

“I,” Roy says, face scrunched up in almost pain. He’s hunched over at the shoulders, hands fisting in the carpet, eyes clenched shut. “Fuck.”

Through the pants is working just fine, then. God. If Roy isn’t coherent enough to do something for him after, he’s gonna just jerk off on his face thinking about how-- fucked up Roy looks right now. The slight tremor that runs through him, the way he shakes his head side to side, the small movements of his lips around half formed words and ragged breaths.

And to think, Ed was ready to marry him _before_ he made these stupid faces _._ Ready to think-- okay, so, he’s settled into something and he’s not gonna leave it. Thinking, mornings and afternoons and evenings and someone who can’t ever swan off. Someone tied to Amestris more closely than Edward has ever been, someone who he knows intimately and loves even if he can’t always like him. Someone who keeps reminding him why he likes him, whenever Ed’s ready to give it up for a bad investment. A high risk, high reward gone low risk, steady returns. Granny’s not getting any younger, and he wanted to see what she’d toast.

Of course he’d finally get to the bottom of one of Roy’s guilt complexes and find a fetish. _Of course._ He doesn’t even know what he was expecting. 

Last night he’d gone to bed, and he had kept waiting for Roy to tell him to leave. Thought that the proposal shocked some kind of conscious awareness into him about how Ed moved in two years ago without permission and never left. Thought that Roy was going to say, _look, it’s not that serious, it was just convenient, and you’ve made it..._ Thought that maybe every _I love you_ and _forever_ was punctuation, sarcasm, a carrot on the end of a stick to keep Ed-- 

convenient. 

He wasn’t gonna leave until Roy said it all out loud. He wasn’t gonna make it fucking easy on him.

“There you go,” Ed says, feeling useless and powerful all at once. Roy’s shaking underneath him in earnest now, panting and whining. He’s opened his eyes, is staring down, a short of worshipful awe that Ed doesn’t know how to withstand. He’s seen glimpses of it before, but Roy always tilted his face away or distracted him.

Roy doesn’t seem to have the ability to distract anyone right now, least of all himself. Ed feels for the head of his cock, caresses around it with his big toe and index toe. 

“There you go,” Ed says again. Feels like it’s the sexual equivalent of an awkwardly placed _there, there,_ but what is he supposed to do? Moan _oh yeah your cock feels so big in my little toesie-woesies_? 

He loves this man. He’s gonna marry this man, probably. But love has limits.

“Ed,” Roy chokes out, and he reaches a hand up, sets that same proprietary and soothing grip around the ankle as before. 

“Yeah?” Ed says.

Roy looks up at him then, and Ed knows how he probably looks-- kinda horny but mostly bored, affection he can’t hide. Fingers drumming on the carpet restlessly, gnawing on his lip and watching Roy watch him. It’s the same kind of look when he’s already come and doesn’t have another one in him, but Roy is taking a while to catch up to him. Frighteningly domestic, frighteningly indicative of love, to suffer boredom for Roy’s sake. 

And then Roy gasps out, _“Ed.”_ and very obviously comes.

Ed snatches his foot back a little before he can help it, flushing red to his ears. “Woah!” he yells. 

“Sorry,” Roy moans out wretchedly, going through the aftershocks, fingernails biting into Ed’s skin. 

“It was _wet,”_ Ed accuses, stupidly, but settles his foot on top of Roy’s cock in apology. Right. In the. Wet spot.

“So sorry,” Roy gasps. He softens the grip of his fingernails, but otherwise seems unable to move. Stiff and boneless at the same time, and Ed could probably shove him over right now with one toe.

He does, cuz fuck it, Roy’s definitely not gonna be able to give him a blowjob in this state. He crawls over on top of him, straddles the ground up near his shoulders.

“Can I jack off on your face,” he says, unbuttoning his pants. 

“Ahh,” Roy says, and obligingly drops his mouth open and closes his eyes.

“Perfect,” Ed says. It doesn’t take as long as he’d thought it might, Roy wrecked and sweaty underneath him, the memory of that awe, the way Roy had come looking at his _face_ and not his _foot_ because he’s just that fucking gone on Ed. 

“Do you want to marry me?” Ed blurts out, cock out, close to coming. It doesn’t matter what Roy says now, and it doesn’t matter that he was going to make _Roy_ bring it up. The shock of a _no_ will make him come just as well as a _yes,_ and if he gets dumped, he wants it to be like this. He wants Roy to be left with jizz in his pants and covering his face. He wants Roy to feel as fucking confused and hurt and naked in the face of rejection as he will. 

Roy squeezes his eyes shut harder, and nods.

 _“Oh,”_ the sound punched out of him, and he has to catch himself with one hand to keep from keeling over. 

When Ed finally finishes, he wipes off on Roy’s chin, and then lets himself flop to the floor beside his-- fiance.

After some swallowing noises, Roy says: “Ed.”

“Roy,” Ed says.

“What was the plan if I said no?”

“You think I ever had one?”

“I thought I hadn’t... I was very deliberate, about the impression I gave you. I thought I hid it very well, how much I-- care for you.”

“Roy.”

“Ed.”

“How much _do_ you love me?”

“...”

“Because. Because it was enough that I didn’t have a single fucking doubt until you told me to fuck off, and I’ve been reassessing you as some kind of demented actor stringing me along this whole time for sex.”

“I’ve been hiding it remarkably.”

“Roy. No. You have not.”

“I _have._ I say only a fraction of what I’m thinking.”

“You have written me _love poems._ ”

“You just gave me a foot job.”

“You donated a library to Resembool and named it after me for our 6 month anniversary.”

“You designed me a ring clearly extrapolated from a paragraph in my favorite romance novel.”

“Novel? Is that what we’re calling that trash these days?”

“I’ve heard plenty call you a novel experience, so yes, I suppose so.”

“Oh, fuck _off,_ ” and Ed laughs. He summons up the energy to tangle their hands together. 

“Darling,” Roy starts.

“Oh, _darling,_ ” Ed muses. “Is that what you’ve been holding in all this time? You can keep on holding it.”

“Dearest, I really would appreciate a washcloth.”

“Why can’t you get one,” Ed whines. 

“Because you’ve gotten semen in my eyelashes, sweetheart,” Roy says.

“Oh. Well. When you put it like that.”

Ed doesn’t move, and considers taking a nap. The silence stretches comfortably between them, the weekend stretching comfortably before them.

“Did you-- was it bad?” Roy asks.

Ed lets himself smile, as wide as he wants, because Roy won’t be able to see it. He’ll only be able to hear the shape it makes the words, won’t be analyzing Ed’s every tooth for meaning. “Yeah. Terrible. Didn’t get into it at all. I was hoping you’d say no, and I’d be able to get out of this relationship before we have to do it again.” 

Roy sighs. “You’re incorrigible.” 

Ed presses his lips to a dry spot on Roy’s cheek, of which there are not many. “I’ll be right back with the washcloth... _darling._ ”

***

They get married in May. 

Ed packs heels for the honeymoon.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/cryingiscooltm)


End file.
